I believe that everyone deserves a fighting chance to pursue their dream. The playing field is not level, but it doesn't have to be that way. We can design ecosystems to nurture innovators, entrepreneurs, and dreamers. We can accelerate innovation at scale, across companies, communities, and countries.

I'm a venture investor and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. My company, T2 Venture Creation, is a unique innovation design firm. We make innovation at scale. We do this by creating entire ecosystems, what we call Rainforests. In other words, we do for ecosystems what incubators and accelerators do for startups.

How Does Silicon Valley Teach Its Children? With A FabLab!

I recall sitting bored in my grade school science class decades ago, and wondering… Instead of giving us so many lectures, wouldn’t it be better to teach us how to build something cool instead? I felt that, by making real objects, we could learn in ways that were more memorable, interesting, and tangible.

It turns out I wasn’t alone. What educators call project-based learning has become a major movement. And now, one elementary school in Silicon Valley is taking this idea to an even higher level.

This fall, Bullis Charter School in Los Altos, California is launching a fabrication laboratory—a “FabLab”—for its kids, complete with computer-aided design tools and a 3-D printer. Students will be able to design their ideas and then make them in real life. My oldest son happens to be one of those lucky children. What I only dreamed about in school—making real things based on the subject matter taught in class—is becoming the reality for kids today.

When I was growing up, lectures, memorization, and heavy testing were the dominant practice in education. Much of the world still follows this industrial-age model. But times have changed. Students are entering a world where they must learn how to be self-directed, self-motivated, able to function in collaborative teams, and flexible enough to adapt to changing situations. In short, they must be like startups. And startups make things in real life.

I interviewed Bullis Charter School’s Superintendent/Principal Wanny Hersey and David Malpica, who is Director of the new FabLab@BCS. David was an educator in 3-D graphics and 3-D printing at Stanford University’s Transformative Learning Technologies Lab. Here is what they said about the new facility and the thinking behind it:

Wanny Hersey: "The mindset of Silicon Valley focuses on radical collaborations, innovative thinking, entrepreneurialism, risk-taking, and learning from failures. Why wait until our children are adults to expose them to these opportunities?"

Q: Why a FabLab in an elementary school?

Wanny: The FabLab is the natural next step for us. Our students are already tinkering and designing through project-based learning, but now they will be using the latest technologies to test their solutions. Instead of using cardboard and paper to create models, they can test their prototypes in 3-D simulations using the same innovative tools that are being used in the business world.

With the FabLab, we can nurture their natural interests and creativity by guiding them through the process of ideating, prototyping, and iterating in a school setting, regardless of their learning styles and abilities. Through failures and successes, there is a lot of learning that takes place, and lots of “ah-ha” moments. We have to provide time and opportunity for children to experience this on a regular basis. Through this, not only will their conceptual understandings be deeper and more meaningful, but they will also be constantly relearning and more willing to take risks because they are not fearful of failure.

Q: How will the FabLab be used to teach children?

David: There are two stages in the design fabrication process in the FabLab. The first stage is skill-building, where we do workshops with the students and focus on a specific skill, like soldering, 3-D modeling, or sewing for soft circuits, laser-cutting, polymer casting, and visual programming.

Once they get the skills, we move to the second stage, which is the project-based learning stage. We put students in teams to go through the design thinking process (or a similar process) for a real-world situation and have them begin to generate solutions. In this stage, they are ideating, prototyping, iterating—all in their own way, at their own level. At the end of this stage, you don’t come out with test scores; you come out with a product that is looked at from a qualitative point of view. There is no correct answer. But through the process, students are learning and using a plethora of skills: engineering, design, programming, and computing, to name a few.

Q: What is the philosophy of education behind the FabLab?

Wanny: The best way for students to learn and stay engaged is through experiential learning—learning by doing. In this model, when students are working at their level of understanding and their areas of interest and passion, there is a freedom to try new ideas and solve problems, from which more questions and idea generation come. I have seen this in all children, regardless of ability or background. When students are engaged, learning becomes self-directed and fluid and continuous. But somehow, our current education system has stripped all of that natural interest and curiosity away from our students and replaced it with a model where students become passive learners.

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